


II.Shards: Of the Corpus Board

by Aster_Writes_Here



Series: Shards, A Warframe Fan Anthology [2]
Category: Warframe
Genre: Derf appears in a cameo, I'm trying to make some Corpus world building here, OCD, One Shot, Other, if the worldbuilding isn't in the work, store bought is fine, the violence tag is for mad scientist scene with Alad, theres a very short scene with some body horror this IS during the Zanuka project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 15:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19008295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aster_Writes_Here/pseuds/Aster_Writes_Here
Summary: Kraig Vex is the head Accountant of Bek Enterprises. When Frohd decides that he wants to flip the balance of power in his favor, he promotes Kraig to the Corpus board, making him go through the ritual of contacting the other two most powerful board members.While Kraig goes through the motions expected of a emotionless, high level Corpus, his mind starts to wander to the past.---This is the second in my Shards series, a series of oneshots with ocs in the Warframe Universe, and part of my feeble attempts to make sense of the Lore given and flesh out this game's world a bit.





	II.Shards: Of the Corpus Board

“Congratulations on your promotion!” Kraig stared wide eyed at his messages. He took off his eyepieces, polishing them on his standard Corpus bodysuit.  
“Welcome to the Corpus Board, Kraig Vex! This is the highest honor a Corpus can receive. The Void and Profit has blessed you to receive this seat…”  
Kraig leaned back, an ironic smirk creeping up his face as he replaced his eyepieces. They must be really desperate to promote the head desk jockey in Bek Enterprise’s Accounting. Perhaps Frohd Bek pulled the strings so he could have more influence now that his criminally inclined son had fled into the ether.  
Kraig would run too, if that man was his father. He wanted to flee just having the old wheezebag as his boss. He leaned on his desk, looking through the glass wall of his office over the many other accountants hard at work, gazing through the display of Corpus figures and numerals on the projected glass screen. He pressed a button, making the glass wall opaque, and stood to look out the window.  
Neptune’s clouds gently swirled by, beautiful swirls of blue and icy white. Kraig wonders what the similar city on Jupiter will look like when it is completed, the metal framework using cutting edge Corpus technology and ancient Orokin antigrav devices to float in the high clouds of a gas giant.  
The day was beautiful, even if he knew that it would not be a good one.  
His reverie is interrupted by an incoming call lighting up his once dimmed glass wall. The screen displays the name “Bald Bastard.”  
“Mr. Bek.” Kraig says, accepting it, crossing his arms behind him.  
Frohd’s tattooed face filled the screen. Frohd had chosen orange, an unusual color, for his facial tattoos. The unique tattoos were a status symbol of Corpus culture, each high ranking corpus having their own set of facial tattoos. Of course, there was many other, far more intimate tattoos hidden under clothing.  
Kraig did enjoy the fact that Frohd’s tattoo looked very much like a target.  
“You got the news, then. Congratulations.” He wheezes out. Kraig is glad he did not congratulate him in person. The device that Frohd wore around his neck to cool his botched Larynx cybernetics gasped hot blasts of steam as the man spoke, making him and anyone near him a sweating, uncomfortable mess.  
“Yes, I am certain that I won this position on my own merits, and not because someone wished for more power.” Kraig says dryly.  
“And you will stick to that story.” Frohd hisses. “You will do what I say and want, or you will be out of a job. And, you will upgrade your facial tattoos.” A puff of steam briefly obscures the screen.  
“I’m certain that the others won’t be happy.” Kraig says. He smiles, knowing he is to ruffle Frohd’s feathers. “Alad V will certainly object to the new power imbalance. He might even strip me of my position if he gets enough backing.”  
Frohd turns red, clashing with his orange jumpsuit. Another blast of steam belches forth from cooling device.  
“I have made precautions against that sort of...coup.” He rasps. “Alad is much too unpopular with the rest of the board to be able to take away your position.”  
“I never doubted that you would have prepared for that, sir.” Kraig says. Frohd gives a tight smile.  
“After all, Alad did teach you everything you know.”  
Kraig smiles as Frohd snarls and closes the transmission. He knows that he can push now Frohd’s buttons. He’s far too valuable to the man at the moment to be punished. Kraig also ends the transmission, then pauses and presses the button again.  
\---  
Bek claimed to have once been an ordinary crewmen who had worked his way up. The secret to his success and the reason why he now sat on the board was his Hyena Proxies, quadruped robotic war machines that were much more agile and powerful then the standard Moas and Ospreys. There were rumors that he stole the original blueprints, but all that mattered to the Corpus is who profited from it. The flow of money was the Void choosing who was worthy to gift with wealth.  
Bek’s origin was a rarity among the board. Despite the persistent myth that any Corpus could work their way up to their level, nearly all board members were old money, or at least had a head start. Keeping lowly crewmen dreaming that if they worked hard enough, they could have a company of their own was the oil that kept the Corpus economy flowing.  
Bek’s other ladder to success was his Proxy catching the ancient eye of Alad V. There had been a member of the V family on the board since its creation, Alad V now being the newest. V Inc. had invented the MOA proxy during the awkward stretch between the Corpus’s transition from a ragtag band of space pirates and merchants to the force they were today, shaping how the Corpus fought, using machines instead of themselves.  
Alad was as old money as they came, the V family even boasting of having Orokin blood, and certainly acted as entitled as his pedigree. Due to his habits of picking petty fights with the Grineer, one of the Corpus’s most profitable customers, and being generally smug and unpleasant, Alad V was a disliked, but tenured member of the Corpus Board. Under Alad’s tutelage, Bek had only became more successful, but grew to hate his mentor.  
His most recent position on the board was “Corpus-Grineer relations”, an unofficial punishment for his behavior. Kraig felt that this would only lead to Alad sabotaging the whole arrangement out of his hatred for the grineer.  
Kraig had to contact him, as per tradition for new members, bracing himself for a difficult call ahead. He removed his eyepieces again, polishing them. He looks at them, noting that they are now clean. He continues to polish them for several more minutes.  
\---  
“Ah, yes, hello to Frohd’s newest puppet. Kraig, was it? I’m - heh - surprised he did not try this sooner.”  
Kraig had caught Alad in the middle of his newest passion project. He appeared to be in a lab, up to his elbows in...something. The camera did not show what was below his shoulders.  
“I am Kraig Vex, the newest member of the board.” Kraig said, adjusting his glasses. “Maybe I should call later-”  
“Oh no no, please, I am only creating something that will revolutionize Proxy making, but go on.” Alad hissed, his usual singsong voice turning to anger. He grunts, yanking what appears to be dark red cords. His yellow gloves are coated in a strange dark substance.  
“What are you working on, exactly? Is this the project you keep teasing?”  
“Aheh, here I thought this was a courtesy call. No, leave it to Frohd to try and spy on me. Jealous of his old tutor. Hah, I regret ever clapping eyes on him. Thought I can smell talent, but it seems I made a rare mistake.” He says, grinning at Kraig.  
“Can you keep a secret, Kraig? No, not with Frohd paying you. Wait in suspense, heheh.” He says, wringing his gloved hands, oblivious to the mess on them. Kraig sighs, trying not to seem too exasperated with Alad’s strange speech patterns and mannerisms. Kraig hoped he would not be so eccentric when he reached that age.  
There's a whoosh of a door opening. The old Corpus turns his head, speaking soothingly to someone unseen.  
“Zanuka, darling, not now. I know you are very, very excited to meet your newest sibling, but she’s not ready yet, dear. She’s still being...salvaged. We will find you some Tenno to play with in the meantime, hmm?”  
Kraig had never heard Alad talk so gently to anyone or anything before, making him raise a curious brow as the man turned back to the screen.  
“Is this Zanuka...your child?” He asked.  
Alad’s tattooed face turns to disgust. “As if I would ever have one of those around. Muddling with my work, making messes, draining my fortunes! Unthinkable. Not all of us are as desperate for a Heir as Frohd is, and look how that turned out, hah! It’s his fault. Bad, common genes, he has.” Alad pointedly looked back at Kraig, smiling smugly. Kraig did not take the bait. Kraig knew that a man was more than just his heritage. Orokin genes could still produce a scoundrel, such as the one he was now looking at.  
“Ah, if I could manufacture the perfect heir myself, I would. They’d be perfect, heh.”  
Alad V returns to his work, still muttering and heh-ing to himself as Kraig moves to end the call. Alad’s words had set off something inside him, making him wish to end the call prematurely. Even though Alad was not his least favorite Board member, despite his unpleasantness. Not out of Alad’s virtue, but because the rest were somehow worse.  
“I will take my leave now, Alad.” Kraig starts, before Alad stops him.  
“Wait, don’t hang up. Don’t you want to see?” Alad is looking back at the screen. His grin and eyes are both wide. “Might as well just show you, heh? A little preview of my brilliance. Let Frohd know that the old man still has it, yes. Zanuka, darling, come.” He beckons to something off screen, a strange wide collar activating to form a ring around his neck. He stands, accidently jostling the camera as he removes the soiled gloves. Kraig stands still in shock, gripping his own thigh, digging his nails in deep.  
A sleek, blue Proxy prowls into the scene, her multiple optics focused on Alad standing before her, arms wide, smiling. At first, Kraig thinks it is a Hyena Proxy, but this one is more finely made, much more streamlined. The creature stretches, then lifts its head to meet Alad’s hand, leaning into his touch. he pets her with a tenderness that Kraig had seen few other Corpus express, the mechanical creature wagging her tail with sheer joy.  
“I can already hear Frohd grinding his teeth! Ah, this is Zanuka. Poetry in motion, and true slaughter given flesh. Poor Zanuka. She’s so alone now. The first of her line. So lonely, being a prototype. But I’m very, very busy. Heh, busy making her sisters.”  
Zanuka headbutts his leg gently, pawing the frail old Corpus’s leg for attention. Alad looks up at the screen, still fixing Kraig with a wide grin as he traces the patterns of blue and teal on her. If he notices the fear and shock on Kraig’s face he doesn’t care.  
“Don’t you want to know the secret of how she is made? Don’t you want to know the surprise?”  
Kraig already knows. When Alad jostled the camera by mistake, it angled down slightly to reveal what exactly Alad V had been working on during their conversation.  
The remains of a Warframe lay on a surgical table, next to neatly placed scalpels. He can see what appears to be a metal skeleton peeking from the peeled away, red flesh, and the pooling black fluid on the white table that dripped down to the floor from the tangled cables that spilled from the incisions.  
\---  
Kraig clutches the sides of the sink, staring at himself in the mirror, his shoulders heaving with his irregular breathing. He had at least stilled the urge to vomit.  
“Calm down, man. It’s just a complex proxy. From the Orokin. It was not a person. Not a person. Just an empty machine.” He repeats. Despite this, the tired old man in the mirror still looks terrified, his tattoos standing out against his palled face. He touches the faucet several times, his knuckles white.  
He drags his hands down his face, pulling his eyelids down, then he removes his headgear, letting his grey hair fall over his face. He drags a hand through it, just trying to breath. Then he draws his hand through his hair again. And again. And again-  
“Not a person. A machine. A machine. Just...fluid, not blood. Not a person. Damn it.” He hisses, squeezing his eyes shut, then opening them. He draws close to the mirror, staring hard at himself, close enough to see the red veins lining his eyes.  
“You are a mess, Kraig. A damn neurotic mess. Skyla would not have wanted you like this. She told you to refocus. To not do the rituals.” He reaches out to the faucet again, but stops himself, clenching his hand. Kraig leaned against the wall, feeling trapped by the tiny bathroom.  
“This isn’t what Skyla would have wanted. Think, breathe, refocus.” He gasps, pressing a hand against his chest. “Why didn’t I just run off with her sooner. Set up a shop somewhere. No, I had to wait, until it was too late. Then we were stuck.”  
He sinks against the wall, fighting back the urge to touch the faucet, thinking about work instead.  
\---  
Kraig shuts the door to the bathroom, sinking heavily back into his desk. Having his own bathroom had been a draw of having his own office, but no one told his it would be roughly the size of a closet. It was perfect for breakdowns, at least.  
He quickly moved to contact Frohd, then groaned. Frohd wanted him to check in with the other most prominent board member.  
Nef Anyo was a rising star among the Corpus Board, amassing a massive fortune over his already significant wealth from being born an a corpus Aristocrat. Nef had realized that the air of fear and tension that hung over the free people of the system could be put milked for Profit.  
There was many different schools of thought and different belief systems throughout the system, but reverence for the Void and the bounty it could bestow was universal. The Void, the strange space outside of the normal realm, was the ancient Orokin’s secret to success. Even now, the Corpus had no chance of uncovering its many secrets.  
Anyo had set himself up as the Void’s chosen Prophet, preaching to the system about The Void and the gifts it could bestow. Gifts that they could have as long as they sent him their money to render unto the Void, but Anyo at the most generous was pocketing a sizable share. That was how he went from an Aristocrat with a purchased Military title of “Sergeant” to a “Prophet of Profit”.  
Kraig loathed Nef Anyo. He hated his slimy, faux polite air, the way he was an obvious swinderler that was pulling the wool over the eyes of so many, and the bastard was using the fear that permeated the system for his own gain. Kraig sighed, starting the call.  
\---  
Nef does not pick up at first. Instead, a younger face fills the screen.  
“Derf? My goodness, how you’ve grown. Feels like just a day ago you were playing in the hall during Nef’s accounting meetings.”  
The young Corpus smiled, showing his gapped teeth. Derf was Nef’s nephew, going into Nef’s care after his mother...Kraig did not want to think about what had happened. Kraig disliked Nef, but Derf had been a ray of light whenever Nef had brought him along during his accounting appointments when he had been a child. Now, Kraig was guessing he was nearly 110, about ready to make his own way in the world.  
“Mr.Vex! Uncle Nef told me to pick up for any calls. Is he needing your services or something?” He asked, moving his mop of black curly hair back. Derf was one of the few Corpus that did not shave all hair, along with Kraig.  
“Oh, no, not yet. I needed to call Nef because I have been promoted. I’m on the Board now.”  
Derf gasped, grinning widely.  
“That’s wonderful! You are going to be so amazing!” He cheered. Kraig smiled.  
“Is Nef available?” He asked.  
“I’ll go get him!” Derf says, running off.  
Kraig watched him go, feeling a pang of sadness. Derf believed that Nef was a good man, still. There was a very high chance that sweet, naive Derf would soon grow up to be as ruthless as his Uncle someday.  
Nef finally appeared on screen, lacking the massive Voidkeysuit he usually wore for an equally tacky embroidered robe, possibly trying, and failing to invoke the Orokin. The screen reflected off his bald head.  
“Ah!” Nef starts in his affected voice, looking down at the screen to see Kraig’s name. Kraig sighed. Of course Nef forgot his name.  
“Kraig...Vex. Have you come now.” Nef pauses for effect. Kraig rolled his eyes. “To make an offering to the Void. I’m sure you are very, very wealthy already to be contacting me personally, but there is always that desire for more, is there not? I never settled for less myself.”  
Nef’s face was nearly totally inked with tattoos. The newer styles for wealthy Corpus was to tattoo as much of their faces as possible. Possibly to stand out against the more traditionally tattooed corpus with thinner lines, such as Kraig. Kraig wondered how painful the process had been for Nef.  
“I am not here to give. I have been promoted to join the Corpus Board.”  
Nef is blanked faced for a moment, Kraig sensing anger behind his face. Nef was difficult to read, with his many tattoos, and his polite facade.  
Eventually, he smiled.  
“Welcome to the Corpus board! Ah, Frohd’s company must be thriving to have you onboard! How wonderful to have those empty seats filled. Now, I will not stand against this, no. Oh, it is wonderful, to have a man with a head for numbers and so little ambition to speak of.” Nef smiled, as if he was paying Kraig a compliment.  
“No, you will not start wars, or funnel funds it trying to catch your offspring. You will be so wonderfully boring. I wonder who the next empty seat will hold.”  
Nef sighed theatrically.  
“What a shame about young Darvo Bek, allying with the wicked Tenno. Frohd must be so devastated, his own flesh and blood abandoning him.” He put an equally heavily tattooed hand on his chest, as if overwhelmed by emotion. Crocodile tears.  
“You should try poker.” Kraig mumbled.  
“Oh, speak up, Mr. Vex. The transmission quality is lacking. Venus’s atmosphere is so smothering at times.” Nef almost certainly heard him.  
“I’m just saying Derf seems to be doing well.”  
“Oh, yes, the dear boy. He’s thriving, despite his awful mother abandoning him. My own sister. I would have never thought she was capable of such evil. Do you remember, Kraig? Were you around then, I mean.”  
“I am older than you, Mr.Anyo.” Kraig said, trying calm.  
“Well, you are not blessed with our lifespan, tragically. You only live half of what I shall. Only three or so centuries, correct?” Nef said, feigning interest. Kraig knew this was just another dig at his common heritage.  
“It is unpredictable.”  
“Well anyway, the Void gives, and so I took little Derf in under my own guidance. Someday, he will be as beloved of the Void as I. He already feels it’s love, but he has so far to go. He will lead others, and become a prophet of profit too.”  
Kraig grit his teeth in a smile, clenching a fist under the table.  
“Yes, yes. I’m glad he’s happy.”  
“Now, I must leave you, Kraig. I’m afraid I am very, very busy. My Razorback Armada still needs much care. I look forward to working with you! You are a most wonderful worker. I’m sure you will do well.”  
“Thank you.” Kraig said tersely, ending the call.  
\---  
Kraig paced his office, trying to stop fuming. Derf’s mother had not abandoned her son. Derf had been stolen from her.  
Derf’s Mother, when Derf was too young to recall, Somm Anyo, had attempted to defect to Perrin. While on paper, Defection was allowed, but was very much discouraged. While the Corpus were already a loose group, united more by their faith in profit then anything else, they were quick to try and stop anyone from leaving the ‘flock’. Nef had slandered her character for it, until he got an idea to get his claws on Somm’s infant son.  
Nef, desperate for a heir to continue his work after he was gone, taken a case to the courts to argue that Somm must be insane to wish to leave the Corpus and abandon the faith. Somm was not in her right mind, therefore was unfit to be a mother.  
Somm had bankrupted herself trying to get her son back, sending appeal after appeal, but had ultimately failed in the end.  
Nef had barred her from communicating with her own child in any way, at threat of being jailed, and had told Derf that he was abandoned by his “cruel and insane” mother.  
Derf never knew how much Somm had loved him.  
Kraig was unsure what had happened to Somm afterwards, but Nef had set a precedent. The rate of defection had slowed since the case, as any possible defecting families would rather stay with a system they disagreed with then loose their children. Any children taken away from their parents would then be placed with loyal relatives, or put in the Corpus Orphan program, a glorified pipeline to the drudgery of a Crewman.  
The Perrin leader, Ergo Glast, was currently battling the “defection tax” but the Court case seemed to be losing, thanks to the biased system.  
Because of this, Kraig hated Nef passionately.  
Kraig had thought about defecting at one point, too, he and her would go, but the tax was too great. He couldn’t lose that wonderful child, so young but already so bright.  
They had discussed it before he was born, but Kraig had hesitated. He had been cowardly. The topic came up while he rocked the cradle while Rem cooed and waved his arms at the Osprey mobile.  
They could hide him.  
They could take the case to court themselves, with Perrin backing.  
They could keep him with her relatives.  
Kraig had agreed. He wanted a better future for his child, away from the miserable system of the Corpus. They could make it work.  
Skyla had gone on a ship with their son, to have him stay with her family while they dealt with the legal proceedings.  
The ship never made it.  
In the end, Kraig lost everything anyway.  
Why was he not on the ship with them? He would not longer be here, but he’d rather be with Skyla anyway.  
That had been fifty years ago. He and Skyla were common Corpus, without a single drop of Orokin blood in their veins, but still gifted with the prolonged lifespan that centuries of Genetic engineering provided. They matured around fifty, unlike the one hundred for aristocrats. If things had been different, his son would now be a young man, the equivalent of Derf’s age.  
Kraig leaned back in his chair, letting it rock back, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to ignore the heat welling up behind them. He counts each rock. He will have to stop once he reaches 100. Or else something terrible will happen.  
\---  
“Did you finish all the calls?” Frohd had forced his call through.  
“I hope you were only in the middle of calling, and not screening my calls out, for your sake.” He hissed  
Kraig looked up from the mess of his scrawled papers across his desk at him.  
“Yes, yes I did.”  
“What did you learn?”  
“Alad is using Warframe parts and technology to make a new Proxy.”  
“Idiot. The Tenno should not be provoked. Who cares, it will all be on his head, anyway.” Frohd coughed.  
“Nef is still working on the Razorback fleet.”  
“Good, good. I have high hopes for that one. I don’t care for his preaching, but his proxies are solid.” Frohd nodded in approval.  
Kraig sighed, standing.  
“Is that all you wanted?” He asked, leaning on the desk. Frohd suddenly looked unsure.  
“Kraig. Today’s the day that…”  
“The Paxas partial implosion. The deadliest peacetime Frigate accident, only leaving behind fifty-five passengers out of three hundred alive. Forty-nine years ago. Yes. I try not to think about it.” Kraig turned away from the screen. What was Frohd trying to do?  
“I know it’s hard to lose the ones you love. When Darvo ran off, I-”  
“Darvo is still alive. Perhaps he’d still be here if you treated him like he’s own person, Bek.” Kraig said, cutting him off.  
The two men glared at each other for a tense moment, bathed by the dim blue light from the window.  
“I will ignore that, as you are still grieving.” Bek snapped. “Forgive me for offering a little sympathy.”  
Kraigturned away again, waiting until Frohd’s heavy breathing was cut off by the ending of the transmission. Kraig walked to the sideroom next to the bathroom, sitting on the cot inside the tiny room.  
Being the single head accountant had at least given him a short commute, he thought bitterly, listening to Night shift employees take over the day shift job the paper thin walls. The day shift employees would commute to their homes floating in the gas, or stay in the communal sleeping chambers.  
Kraig lay staring up at the ceiling, counting the lights over and over to stop his heart from pounding. Finally, Kraig picked up an old holoframe from the rickety side table, staring at the picture within.  
A younger Kraig stood next to a smiling woman, a baby in her arms. Behind them was a tacky tourist on Europa trap that Skyla and her sister had wanted to go to. Kraig had fun anyway, despite it being a scam. Anywhere had been fun with his family.  
It was a silly picture, with them all wearing the park’s MOA themed hats, but it was the only one with all three of them together.  
Usually he was the one who took the photos of Skyla and Rem. He scrolls through the pictures on the frame, smiling sadly. Visiting her family. That sad day at his parent’s graves. Buying their first guard MOA. Rem smiling in his crib. Skyla holding Rem after the nurses brought him to her, seeing her son for the first time.  
Finally, he came to the picture of their Wedding day. Kraig’s father and mother had been interested in Ancient pre-Orokin culture, shown by them giving him such an ancient, unfashionable name. He wanted to have a wedding in the ancient style in their honor.  
So he and Skyla had a traditional wedding, inspired by his parent’s research. Skyla wore a beautiful white dress that flowed around her like a cloud, Kraig had saved for months for it, but he would have happily paid twice the price as he saw her stride towards him, looking like an angel. He looked rather plain next to her in his suit, but happier then he had ever been.  
Kraig zoomed in on her happy face, touching it gently.  
“I’m sorry, Skyla. I’ve become what we wanted to get away from. I’m sorry I never became brave for you.” He said, softly.  
Kraig reached for the light, darkening the closet of a room.  
The impulse comes to turn it on, and off, and on, and off, but when he gazes at Skyla’s glowing face in the dark, he pulls his hand away from the switch, and lays back.  
Kraig knew that she’d disagree, and say he was very brave indeed. He just needed a little more courage.  
“Everyone is a work in progress.” she had said. Kraig smiled at her picture.  
“Someday, I will become brave for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry that this one did not have such a happy ending. I'm planning on coming back to Kraig someday. I am planning on having him defect, and he will find one of the people he thought he lost. Because This is a soap opera and I love that sappy shit.  
> Also, sorry that this isn't a new Cosmic Background Radiation chapter. I had been sitting on this draft for awhile and thought hey, it's good enough to post.  
> People who have read CBR might notice that Alad is a little different in this fic. I used my own headcanons and ideas for him here.  
> Also enjoy Derf. He's adorable.  
> Yes, Kraig does have OCD, and severe anxiety that's only gotten worse since losing his wife and son. I have OCD myself, so I hope I was able to portray it right. To be honest, I feel bad giving it to Kraig. It's not fun at all.


End file.
